nature may be said to excel all the fictitious descriptions of the most animated imagination. I shall finish this article {116} with a short account of that spot where the commodore pitched his tent, and which he made choice of for his own residence, though I despair of conveying an adequate idea of its beauty. The piece of ground which he chose was a small lawn that lay on a little ascent, at the distance of about half a mile from the sea. In the front of his tent there was a large avenue cut through the woods to the seaside, which sloping to the water with a gentle descent, opened a prospect of the bay and the ships at anchor. This lawn was screened behind by a tall wood of myrtle sweeping round it, in the form of a theatre, the slope on which the wood stood, rising with a much sharper ascent than the lawn itself, though not so much but that the hills and precipices within land towered up considerably above the tops of the trees, and added to the grandeur of the view. There were, besides, two streams of crystal water, which ran on the right and left of the tent, within an hundred yards distance, and were shaded by the trees which skirted the lawn on either side, and compleated the symmetry of the whole. It remains now only that we speak of the animals and provisions which we met with at this place. Former writers have related that this island abounded with vast numbers of goats, and their accounts are not to be questioned, this place being the usual haunt of the buccaneers and privateers who formerly frequented those seas. And there are two instances--one of a Musquito Indian, and the other of Alexander Selkirk, a Scotchman, who were left here by their respective ships, and lived alone upon this island for some years, and consequently were no strangers to its produce. Selkirk, who was the last, after a stay of between four and five years, was taken off the place by the _Duke_ and _Duchess_ privateers of Bristol, as may be seen at large in the journal of their voyage. His manner of life during his solitude was in most particulars very remarkable; but there is one circumstance he relates, which was so strangely verified by our own observation, that I cannot help reciting it. He tells us, amongst other things, that as he often caught more goats than he wanted, he sometimes marked their ears and let them go. This was about thirty-two years before our arrival at the island. Now it happened that the first goat that was killed by our people at their landing had his ears slit, whence we concluded that he had doubtless been formerly under {117} the power of Selkirk. This was indeed an animal of a most venerable aspect, dignified with an exceeding majestic beard, and with many other symptoms of antiquity. During our stay on the island we met with others marked in the same manner, all the males being distinguished by an exuberance of beard and every other characteristick of extreme age.